1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an oil level display device of an engine that allows visually checking an amount of oil, without insertion or removal of an oil level gauge.
2. Related Art
Generally, an oil level gauge is pulled out of an oil filler tube that is provided vertically on an oil pan of an engine, and the amount of lubricant oil stored in the oil pan is checked on the basis of the position of oil adhered to the gauge body at the leading end of the gauge. Such oil level gauges have a drawback in that the operator must insert and remove manually the gauge in order to check the amount of oil. In particular, when various devices are disposed around the engine, the position of the oil level gauge is at the bottom and thus difficult to reach, whereby workability becomes poor.
Accordingly, the applicants had proposed, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. 2005-134256, an oil level display device that is provided with a float that moves up and down in accordance with an oil level, a marker that is connected to the float, and a transparent cover that is provided on the crank case of an engine and has the marker built thereinto. As a result, the amount of oil can be easily checked visually without the need for complicated operations of inserting and removing an oil level gauge.
While the oil level display device disclosed in JP-A No. 2005-134256 can remove complicated operations such as gauge insertion and removal incurred in conventional oil level gauges can thus be dispensed with, the oil level display device is not compatible with conventional oil level gauges, and requires a new design and new installation. This may result in an increase in cost and cause a problem in engine mounting layout.